Transcripts For CSPAN2 Author Discussion - Telling Our Stori

CSPAN2 Author Discussion - Telling Our Stories November 10, 2022

Charter communitions, along with these Television Companies come support cspan2 as a public service. Welcome again to the 16th National Black writers conference. My name is Erica Buddington and as you for of langston league, a consulting curriculum from the specialize in cultural affirmative Chuck Schumer materials and writing for latenight segment called how to begetter . Speaking of how we got here, we are all here for a roundtable discussion entitled the souls of black folk telling our stories. Todays roundtable title is taken from w. E. B. Du bois Landmark Book the souls of black folk and in this regard todays speakers will discuss how their work speaks to the publics expense of black people throughout the African Diaspora through fiction, poetry, drama and acidic each writer featured here today will illustrate the ways in which his or her work speak to the complex experiences of black people in the literature and beyond. I i know at the 16th National Black writers conference, but the speaker youre about to listen to are not solely living by the pen. You will be witnessing the unraveling of whitewashed history the eyes of the stories like dolen perkinsvaldez whose work into american soil and pull that narratives that are imagined and to all at once. You we look at executive producers like jelani cobb whose influence ranges from the newly released lincolns to look. You can listen to scifi and fantasy tv comic book conus is like marlon james whose work will be splashing across our screens in the coming years and it will be no surprise any of us. Youll hear voices alltoofamiliar because youve heard them several times before like Khalil Gibran muhammad whose word of grace many document is a Media Outlets shaking the speakers and archives simultaneously. Youll see Maaza Mengiste who not only the and if that wasnt enough, here are the speakers formal bios. Jelani cobb is the director of the center for journalism and civil and human rights at Columbia University and a professor at columbia Journalism School. Hes been a staff writer at the new yorker since 2015 and in 2018 was a finalist for finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and commentary hes an author and editor of six books include the recently published a matter of black lives, writing from the new york. His 2020 film whose vote counts receive the peabody award for new documentary. Hes the author of the essential Kerner Commission report which came out in fall of 21 with his or her about the substance of hope brock obama and the paradox, progress was reissued in 2020. Marlon james aborting to make in 1970. Easy author of the brief history of seven kelly to the book of night woman, and jim crows devil. His most recent novel moon which spy became the second novel and james dark star trilogy about the confederacy was published in figure 2022. 2022. Hes recipient of the 2015 booker prize, the american bok award and man still what book prize for fiction, the literary peace prize and was a finalist for the twindemic and National Book award and he is a fellow yachting. Maaza mengiste is a recipient of the American Academy of arts and letters award in literature as well as Los Angeles Times book by spineless and was named the best book of 2019 by New York Times and other publications. Beneath the line to gaze was selected by the guardian is one of the ten best contemporary african books. Khalil Gibran Muhammad is the awardwinning author of the commendation of black disk of race, crime and the making of modern urban america and is a contributor 2014 National Research council study, the growth of incarceration in the u. S. , exploring causes and consequences. He is coaching a National Academy of sciences report of on reducing racial inequality in the criminal justice system. He cohosts the pushkin podcast can some of my best friends are, and is a frequent review and commentary in National Print and broadcast Media Outlets such as the washington post, nati, National Public radio, pbs newshour in a cbc, and the new times which include its essays for the 6019 project on sugar. He has in a number of featurelength doc music link the recent release amend the fight for america oscarnominated 2016 and slated by another name, 2012. He is an awardwinning teacher at harvard and has received numerous commitment to publication such as ebony par 100 of the distinguished Service Medal from Columbia University teacher college. He serves on several boards including the very institute of justice, the museum of modern art. Dolen perkinsvaldez was a finalist for two Naacp Image Awards and her stimulates it werent for fixity in 2017 harpercollins release is one of eight of us had limitededition that included he received a d. C. Commission on the arts grant for second novel which is published by harpercollins in 2015. In 2013 she book introduction special edition of 12 12 yeaa slave published by Simon Schuster which became a new times bestseller. She is currently chair of the board of an foundation as a professor in the Literature Department at American University in washington, d. C. The next section ive asked our speakers to speak for five to seven minutes on the following question as relates to the past or forthcoming works. What literary works, comic books or films and tv shows illustrated the complexity of the black the story for you . Which one and how so . Howdy upbringing, or person like experience shape your writing and what monolith or falsehood about black people in the diaspora are plucked apart or negated in the pages of your work . The last 30 minutes of our conversation are reserved for audience questions. Please use a q a button to ask questions as a speaker speaking to the chat feature can be used to make, and i will reserve 30 minutes for questions to be answered. Its something resonates with you or if you have an alleluia or indeed please drop it in the chat. Jelani cobb will start with you. How did i know i would go first . I see my good friend Khalid Mohammed there who i would eagerly pass up initial duties to come actually really just happy for you. I did not use the board. Hope you can give you me lip limiting membership. Some happy to be here with you all, happy to be able to participate in this conversatio conversation, you know, as a panelist, particularly given the fact that this conference was so integral to my development as a young writer. I attended this conference as a young person. It is where i made many of the formative relationships in my life, my career. Notably my first interaction with Stanley Crouch was at the conference in 1995 or 96. He and i and i got into ad argument as anyone who knew stanley would do automatically, and we continued to argue with an increasing degree of affection over the next two decades, more than two decades, until his untimely passing. But i say that to say that this conference is doing the crucial work of building the foundations that will enable our narrative and our contribution to the global thread of literature to continue and move forward. Now, to answer that question about me specifically, i think that theres a book that is not terribly well known but had a tremendous impact on me, and its a book by invited by the name of Maurice Lemoine called bitter sugar. And it was assigned to me my first year at howard in a class called black diaspora which all students were required to take. And what follows the experience, chronicles the experience of haitian Migrant Workers in the Dominican Republic. And not only does it tell the narrative of the individuals who are experiencing the bitter exploitation that happens in that context, but it connects this narrative to transnational corporations, you know, wealth and western indices that are based in north america, and explicated grip that they have on labor throughout the diaspora, particularly in the caribbean. And in reading that book it made me cognizant of threads that were in front of me my entire life. I grew up in queens, new york, which is statistically the most diverse county and the United States. My nextdoor neighbor was from jamaica. I neighbor upstairs, downstairs was a family from trinidad, and the building next to them the neighbors were a family that it come from haiti, you know, to the United States. And i remember then explained me the significance of the fall of the regime in the 1980s. And so what that book did was give the context for me to be able to understand the relationship between children in haiti and the Dominican Republic and cotton in georgia and alabama were my parents had grown up. And its part of this nascent sense that there was this global thread, interconnected, that there was at this thing called diaspora and that, my mind is never tired of trying to understand the ways in which our lives are interconnected and the ways in which the dynamics that begin the moment they begin taking us off of the slave ships in different ports of destination, and have made the incredibly complicated and crucial tapestry of relationships that we see between those two experiences, of these myriad of experiences to this day. Powerful. You know, you talk about being a part of the National Black writers conference all this time and i myself grew up here in this Conference Since i was a teenager and watched many a heated debate about numerous topics i was there for hakeem and cornel west i remember that. Okay, you were there for that. I was 19 and i was blown away, right . It was amazing. You know, i also had the realization that the narratives id grown up with, i grew up brooklyn and long island, were making its way into the literature and i was blown away to the connections ever happening between what i learned growing up, the red line and all of the different system issues in the way which they made into work. I would love to ask, like those neared its you grew up with your neighbors nextdoor, the systemic things that were unraveled for you growing up, what works do you feel like those items are centered in the works that you, what narratives, which narratives that you have grown up with are centered in that . It informed of the content that i think it shows up most family and work ive done at the new yorker. You know, in talking about the ways in which many of these communities overlap in many of these histories overlap, and so the history informed everything that ive done. And so i would probably say that, you know, like it just comes up in all of the things that i do, particularly most commonly in my journalism. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Next up we have marlon james. Oh, my god. Why did i know i was going to be next . Your turn. You are in the hot seat now. First of all, for me, just the existence of black literature, black art. Black sites, Like Research and all that was complicated. I was born, what, eight years after jamaica was independent, but i still had pretty reduced colonial litigation, and i was still sort of trained in empire. So things like language, i was raised to think that part of that was broken english many have something to need to be fixed. Most of the books i read, and i still love them, i love dickens, i love all that but thats what i was raised literature for me was victorian literature. The idea, went to school or where race to be gentlemen, the gentlemen were modeled on royalties. Its where, with a lot of people tend england and so no blacks, no jews, the irish. Oh, so they dont mean me then. So what im saying is i was, you know, one of the things, youll still get people from the caribbean say theres things like in jamaica its not racist class. And, of course, we say that because colonialism taught us. Meanwhile, it never occurred to me that the nightclub in kingston wont let me in for wearing a tshirt by phil that all the tourists in was a race thing. It just didnt occur to me. I was like well, i need to put on a shirt next time. So what im saying is a very existence of black american art complicated things. The very existence of song of solomon, for example, or you know, a jamaican black brother men. 1988 what event public enemies it takes a nation of millions to hold us back and nwa straight out of compton which between the two of them made my head explode. And not just because i got to say a lot of f words, but also because i have never interrogated relationship between police and institutionalized power, considering i come from a cop family. It never occurred to me, this idea of blackness as as a so, cultural, political identity. Where would ive gotten it from . So lot of those works created this sort of awakening in me. Sometimes its something as people dont talk, maybe never thought about like a different world. Its the evolution of seeing, even show so we may have low opinions of like good times, missing evolution from good times two different world two other shows which that man was talking about. But the idea that black was not a monolith is something that i wasnt raised to know. So you know, you know, one of the things that like the novel like say the color purple did was for me liberate my writing to the way it is. Thats how i was raised. What else would i write to . You know, i remember when there was this saying, ive set my second book of night women to british publisher that shall remain nameless, viking, and they sent me back a letter saying yes, this is good and its great and so on, but would you reconsider rewriting the whole thing in english . Because if you dont, britain and the rest of the world may not like it. The book became a hit in the uk, but that was the kind of thing i was still expecting, and its interesting to me reading, even presentday criticism, british criticism of my work on just how unsophisticated it is because there is still this taken for granted that if you are writing literature, surely your writing to white views because that is what literature is about. And it took me a while, and man, i dont know where, black american and art, because one of the things that it did was then had me turn back some jamaican art. For example, until reggae came along, the idea of using jamaican patent law to speak to power or to talk about complicated issues, to talk about grief, to talk about the consequences of violence. A bob marley song that johnny was. It would never occurred thats not what right photographic even summary like claude mckay who is crucial to the harlem renaissance couldnt get past and romanticizing of english and couldnt get past a romanticism with certain type of english. It took me a while to realize every time i open my mouth, a song popped out. Thats the language we were taught. Its not just in the black and African Diaspora. Nigerian writers tell you the same thing. We have to completely throw away this english we knew all along. And if it wasnt for Toni Morrison and alice walker and James Baldwin and ice cube and the qtips, we wouldnt have known it. So for me that, those are the works for me that illustrate the complexity of the black experience. Merely showing me that it was complex, that, you know, a soul album is so far removed from and nwa album. But is this something that i s obsessed with both of them equally. Because i just never, that sort of complexity with something that was never taught to me, and something that culture and africanamerican culture taught me. And it continues, that spills over in my work. I think thats a different question. Thank you so much. That is really powerful. I mean, im learning, i learned about thorndale hurston wish of the same sort of pushed back with using certain language within her work and going up or my mom and dad and i often had this conversation of using hot water and saying things like this johnson realizing thats rooted in language that we were taught during enslavement and the wind which we created it come like its ours now but the roots of it we still have to contend with. So hearing that from you as you want to shift my cures to several things, so thank you. Some of the things, a very simple thing, about jamaican and petrol and nigerian pidgin. Verbs are always present tense. Because action is always present tense first for us. One of the reasons why white people cant understand we talk about slavery we speak in the present tense here time is a continuum and thats one of the things thats essentially african. It didnt occur to me, i thought it was just bad english, that it didnt say he went. I go, you know . Him go, even where he go ego. Thats because a lot of our language is like verbs remain present tense. Action is always active. Why wouldnt action be active . But that is just another example of one of the things that a slick ship couldnt drum out. But i had it listed as oh, thats another thing i need to fix. Thank you so much for that perspective. Giving lessons today. Next up, marlon. Thank you, maaza. Thank you, erica. Its such a pleasure to be here and to be, dolen, i i think yu and i had one of our first book events on our first books a long time ago marlon is such a good friend of mine. Jelani cobb, truly an honor to be here with you. Ive been listening to what the speakers have been talking about and thinking about my own experiences that led me to writing the shadow king, about mussolini is invasion of ethiopia in 1935 in an attempt to colonize it. A couple of things. I was thinking about the books that i read or things that i as a child, a black girl g

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